The London Olympics are still 10 months away but the Games have already begun to cast a peculiar, and occasionally exotic, shadow across the capital. On Tuesday it was the turn of Lord's cricket ground, by reputation perhaps the most starchily wing-collared sporting venue in the world, to come sauntering out of hibernation with a drink in each hand, the host of its own Olympic archery garden party.

The use of Lord's as the archery venue at London 2012 is one of the more unlikely sporting collisions. A test competition is being staged over four days this week, intended as a dry run for the logistical labyrinth of competition, stewarding and accreditation.

In the event, as the minute and entirely inscrutable drama of the men's team competition unfolded across a swath of luminous Lord's turf – witnessed by four yawningly empty stands of white plastic seats – it was clear above all how keenly the Games itself depends on a sense of theatre and occasion.

Without it, under leaden London skies, this was an occasion most notable for the spectacle of tracksuited far-eastern archers emerging past the long room, and a reminder perhaps of the many fascinating demands the Games will make on Londoners next summer.

In the end Lord's put up with it all quite stoically, and if there was something a little low-key about it all the blame is perhaps best directed at a total absence of spectators – local residents and schools had been offered tickets – and even at archery itself. This is a sport still dismissed by some as a decidedly minor Olympic event, darts for the middle-classes. In fact archery is more like darts for Koreans, the world's most archery-crazy nation and home to the No1 ranked men's team.

The lack of anything close to a purpose-built Olympic venue is a reflection of its junior status here. For next summer Lord's will be configured with temporary stands to create what Tom Dielen, secretary of the International Archery Federation, described as "an amphitheatre atmosphere".

On this evidence they're going to need it. As a spectator sport archery seems to have three major problems: you can't see the arrows; you can't see the arrows hitting the target; and you can't see the craft, the unarguable miniature greatness of whatever it is the archers are doing out there, executing their two-fingered expertise in the shadow of Thomas Verity's red brick pavilion. On Tuesday the South Korean men's team set a world record. You could tell something important had happened because suddenly they all started hugging each other.

On the plus side the day seemed to pass off entirely without hitches. This was perhaps to be expected as archery is in the safest of hands. There is often talk of these games leaving a "legacy", but archery at Lord's is really a case of the Olympics piggybacking on London's own ancestral sporting riches. Take away the stadium and there really is very little to staging this event beyond some plastic awning and a row of targets arranged on the fringes of the defiantly roped-off main square.

Quite what the members at cricket's oldest and grandest citadel make of all this has yet to emerge. Lord's has staged archery before, most notably in the early 20th century, and anyone who watched India's batsman perform during the recent test series will testify that Tuesday was not the first occasion this summer a series of inanimate targets have been skewered on an English cricket field. But the fact is Lord's just doesn't normally do this kind of thing. John Stephenson, the MCC's head of cricket, played an admirably dead bat to questions about what, if anything, might be in it for cricket, styling Olympic involvement as marketing exercise for Lord's itself, a chance to raise the "visibility" of the world's most visible cricket ground.

The eyes of the world will be on London for two weeks next summer: archery at Lord's promises to be, at the very least, a most intriguing odd-couple drama.